Conservative Analyst Compares Trump to ‘X-Men’ Villain

It’s Election Day in America and now that polls across the country are closing, media outlets are hard at work broadcasting the results of various congressional and gubernatorial races. Comic book fans watching election coverage on CNN might have noticed an incredibly obscure comic reference.

While discussing President Donald Trump, one of the conservative pundits on the panel mentioned the President was able to “absorb political punches” and transform it into strength. David Urban, the pundit in question, then when on to say Trump was not unlike classic X-Men villain Sebastian Shaw.

Shaw — created by iconic comic creators Chris Claremont and John Byrne — first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (1980). As the leader of the New York branch of the Hellfire Club, Shaw’s able to absorb several times of energy and use it to his advantage to fuel his strength and healing powers.

At one point, the villain also funded the mutant-hunting Sentinel program.

The character has appeared in live-action one time. Played by none other than Peter Quill mentor and guardian angel Kevin Bacon, Shaw served as the antagonist in X-Men: First Class.

X-Men: First Class was directed by Matthew Vaughn, somebody who didn’t see himself directing back-to-back superhero genre movies.

“The reason I haven’t done sequels in the past is they just weren’t exciting me,” Vaughn told Collider. “And on Days of Future Past, even though I co-wrote the bloody thing, the reason I bailed out of it is two things: First, I respect Bryan Singer hugely and X-Men is Bryan’s world and I feel he let me play in his sandbox. I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t my sandbox. I wanted my own sandbox.”

“And, second, I didn’t want to do Days of Future Past next,” he said. “I felt that one should be in a trilogy and Days of Future Past should be the finale of that story. I would have done a film in-between where you meet the young Wolverine and a new character, and then Days of Future Past became the young Wolverine and the old Wolverine and just really blow it out.”